Looking over the course of my half century working in the fields of LatinAmerican and US history, I find that from the beginning to the end I have beenworking in a relatively isolated area of our historical profession. I have beencommitted to history as a social science, and in that framework, using mostlycomparative and quantitative analysis to study themes related to basic socialand economic structures. In this I have been much influenced by the traditionalvision of the Annales school of historical research. I have also been totallycommitted to working within the social sciences, having completed a minordoctoral field in Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

In the early eighteenth century, two Basque brothers of the Spanish Zangroniz family established a trading house in the Cuban capital. Through the expansion and diversification of their business activities over time, they created a powerful transatlantic commercial network, and in the process became important actors during a period characterized by vastly increased economic integration in the Atlantic world. Behind this growth were technological innovations. The brothers' shrewd use of them “made it possible to transport more and different kinds of items across great distances.

In 1742, a highland Andean named Juan Santos led a group of mainly Asháninka and Yanesha warriors against a handful of isolated Franciscan missions in the central high jungle of Peru. Over the next ten years the rebellion smoldered, occasionally sparking to life, as Santos's forces pushed the missionaries based out of the College of Santa Rosa de Ocopa (near Jauja, Peru) back to the highlands. The uprising culminated in a brief foray into the highlands, but never effectively reached beyond the security of the densely vegetated high jungle, known locally as the central montaña region. Despite its modest accomplishments, the rebellion secured autonomy for the combatant nations during the rest of the colonial period.

Prevalent scholarly studies of indigenous language documents from Mesoamerica's colonial times include the predominant argument that they were written by native scribes to protect community interests. The belief is that scribes performed as notaries in municipal councils to generate native language notarial documents as indemnity against possible infractions of their communities’ rights to possess property. Notarial documentation was usually extrajudicial, created by the municipal scribe for community protection and not for any specific litigation before a Spanish magistrate. Their writings represented internal municipal administration and the jurisdiction of the native cabildo (town council) within each republic of Indians. They could be utilized, if necessary, to bolster indigenous claims to their rights and privileges in litigation brought before Spanish officials.

This article focuses on the history of an Afro-descendant family over its seven generations in one region of Minas Gerais. Although it is notoriously difficult to trace families founded by slaves, this one is an exception: it has proved possible to trace this family over a century and a half, and with a remarkable level of detail, because its members mostly stayed in one place. The implications of their permanence go beyond mere genealogy or family reconstitution to challenge long-standing historiographical perspectives. Over the years many scholars have agreed that Brazilian colonial and early imperial society was characterized by the near-constant movement of all segments of the population. New frontiers opened by agriculture, ranching, and mining attracted some members of the elite, but also beckoned the less favored with new opportunities. This incessant movement has even been touted as an impediment to the advancement of family history in Brazil.